


In Your Vault, In Your Mists, In Your Song

by Findswoman



Series: The Gand Series [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gand - Freeform, Gand Findsman, Gen, Grave, Grief/Mourning, I Am Stretched on Your Grave, Mourning for spouse, Prophecy, Prose Poem, music box, tomb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: One of the great Findsmen of the past mourns and reflects on the untimely death of his wife—and on what the future might hold.
Relationships: Original Character(s) & Original Character(s), Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Series: The Gand Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783291





	In Your Vault, In Your Mists, In Your Song

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in about 1000 BBY. Originally written in July 2017 as an ad-hoc entry in the [Celtic Songs Challenge](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-celtic-song-challenge-five-songs-of-love-murder-and-rebellion-left.50043753/) at JCF, inspired by the song “I am Stretched on Your Grave” (of which there are any videos/recordings available, but I especially liked [this one]()). Closely tied in to both [The Book of Gand](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-book-of-gand-mostly-ocs-%E2%80%94chapter-19-posted-11-19.50019763/) and my [Gand fanon lore](http://boards.theforce.net/posts/51965693); for detailed notes on the story, see [its posting at JCF](https://boards.theforce.net/posts/54415411).

In the twilight, when Te’el-Viire-Gand sinks to its sleep in mists of red, purple, and gray, Trynfor goes down to your vault—Isthien, Flower of Gand, Sacred Healer.  
  
The other Findsmen of this temple gaze on Trynfor in fear as they see him venture down the stone passage. They know where he is going. Trynfor can feel the facets of their eyes upon him, their fear and apprehension rippling the mists around him. _You’re mad, Akhtáriyaan! Why do you persist in this? What intuition can you possibly gain from the fogs of death?_  
  
But Trynfor glares and gnashes—and the flagstones tremble, and the sconces go out. And the others scatter.  
  
Trynfor descends the endless dank, cracked steps, heedless of the lung-piercing cold, of the miasmic subterranean vapors that smother his antennae, of the vermin of the dark that swarm about his boots. He wends his way through the dark, narrow catacomb-corridors, his hand stretched out before him; his only guides are the cold phosphorescent glow of the walls and the wandering Mists on which he has called in his Ritual of Wayseeking.  
  
Finally he arrives at your vault—and the darkness becomes as noonday sunlight, the vapors as dawn mists, and the underground stench as the fragrance of a _lulan_ tree in full bloom. Your stone image towers over him. Oh, Akhtáriyaan cannot face it: why is unyielding stone all that remains of that grace, that brightness? He prostrates himself.  
  
Trynfor takes the box—you know which one, the gift of endearment that has come back to him as a memento of you—from the pocket of his robe and places it at your stone feet. Its spring has already been wound; Trynfor opens it. It sings in its silvery voice the song of the peerless hunter, the resplendent _zaviir,_ the fierce beloved whose strike is healing—the song that is you, and only you, O radiant one! Trynfor sits enrapt, heart and lungs open. In the sparkle of its tones your mist-currents envelop him and fill him—and oh, it is like the joy of his _joining_ with you! Perhaps They shall give Trynfor a glimmer of revelation at last, perhaps answer his questions, his prayers—perhaps even comfort him.  
  
Meanwhile Trynfor sings in rapture to Them as he once did to you: _Strike and wound and heal, O fierce beloved! / Clap this heart in binders, and then it shall be—_  
  
Trynfor notices the finely limned image on the inside of the lacquered lid: a Findsman trampling his foe. Robes whirling and eyes flashing, he has just forced his captive to submission with the point of his shockstaff. That is, of course, what your love has done to the miserable Gand who now crouches at your grave; it is also what the Tórganswani raider did to you. Akhtáriyaan lowers his eyes: why could he not have done the same to those who struck you down, who made you the victim of their rage?  
  
Meanwhile, the song slows and dies before its appointed end—just as you did, Isthien most beloved, just as you did. Along with it the mist-currents dwindle and depart, leaving only fog. Cold now strikes Akhtáriyaan; he wraps his cloak about himself and shivers. For how can the glow of revelation warm him when you, Flower of the Mists, are sealed in cold stone? How could Akhtáriyaan have thought it would?  
  
Gand’s head is bowed. He dares not look up, either at your image or at the image in the box. The cold continues to grip him; he is numb and worn, and the dampness of underground is soaking slowly into him. Gand tries to calm his Inner Mists and enter Stillness of the Fog, but it is of no use. Trembling seizes him; tears well up; and they fall, staining and etching the stone below—your stone. Upon it this Gand shall lie hunched, cold, and fogbound always . . .  
  
Wait, though—what is that spark of warmth pressing into Trynfor’s breast? It is the Treasure that he has carried with him since the day of your death, which you charged Trynfor in your last cries that he should guard forever. Akhtáriyaan shudders at the memory of how he procured it (or, rather, extracted it): Sacred Mists, the horror of those moments is forever burned into Gand’s consciousness! But he shall keep the promise he made to you and to the Mists to safeguard it always—until the appointed time that you and Trynfor both foresaw, when its power and radiance shall at last be revealed to all Gand at the hand of an unknown one—an Uncanny One. Trynfor presses it closer . . .  
  
A presence rustles the surrounding Mists. Trynfor recognizes it at once: it is Zukfel Ng’xvi-Ta’al-Lhúd, _tarnuur,_ boon friend. He walks softly, his steps muffled by Sneaking Mist. He is trying not to disturb this poor, dejected Akhtáriyaan—as if Trynfor would not immediately sense _his_ mist-currents? His robes and boots brush past Trynfor’s eyes. There is a tiny ratcheting sound, and then again the song—he has rewound the box. Then, slowly, quietly, Zukfel comes over and crouches at Trynfor’s side, speaking his name.  
  
“Zukfel?” Trynfor looks up to see his friend’s eyes—bright, lively, silver—level with his own . . .  
  
It is then that revelation blazes forth from those eyes like a pillar of light. Visions of a possible future shimmer into view: Zukfel beside Trynfor in his last moments (for soon he must join his Isthien in the Mists Beyond)—Zukfel’s hands outstretched as Trynfor places his Treasure into them—the legions of his descendants who will guard that Treasure and its secret—  
  
—and then everything flickers and disappears, leaving only _those eyes_ —and Trynfor’s intuition whispers to him: _these are the eyes of the Uncanny One._  
  
What does it mean? Is Zukfel himself the Uncanny One? No, that could not be; the Mists had just shown Trynfor years, generations, _centuries_ passing. A scion of his, perhaps? Perhaps . . .  
  
Trynfor probes the Mists, but They disperse and show him no more.  
  
“May Zukfel be of assistance?”  
  
Zukfel’s gentle voice brings Trynfor back to himself. Trynfor blinks his nictitating membranes and reaccustoms himself to the dim subterranean light. Shall Trynfor tell the _tarnuur_ what has just been shown him?  
  
“No, gracious thanks,” Trynfor responds after a few moments. Zukfel blesses Trynfor with a wave of his hand, wordlessly, then departs.  
  
Yes, Trynfor shall not trouble the _tarnuur_ with a passing vision. Perhaps someday the Mists shall transfigure that vision in the light of prophecy; perhaps not. For now, all Trynfor can do is remain here upon your stone, wrapped in your Mists and your song. Though the cold and damp still seep into him, the promise of the Treasure shall warm him. And till Te’el-Viire-Gand and its mists rise in blush-golden splendor, Trynfor shall rest calmly here within your vault—Sacred Healer, Flower of Gand, Isthien!


End file.
